As shown schematically in FIG. 10, a typical, known surface mount connector 1 comprises a one-piece, insulating, receptacle-form housing 2 retaining a longitudinally extending row of pairs of opposed metal contacts 3 mounted on a circuit board 4.
The housing has a base wall 5 and feet or "stand offs" 6 depending from opposite longitudinal ends thereof which maintain the base wall 5 spaced above the upper surface of the circuit board. Each contact has an upstanding connecting portion 7 for connection to corresponding contacts of a mating connector and joined by a medial portion, anchored in the base by molding-in (as an insert), to a leg portion 8 which bends out under the base to extend laterally outwardly for connection by reflow soldering to conductive pads 9 of the circuit board.
However, the connector of the prior art is susceptible to several problems, and disadvantage. For example, when the contacts 3 are installed in the housing 2, the legs 8 are sometimes not coplanar with some being deformed upwardly, for example, possibly even out of the circuit board engaging plane, with the result that the legs 8 cannot be soldered to the pads of the circuit board 4 so they make contact with them equally, resulting in an unreliable connection.
Furthermore, as the legs 8 of the contacts 3 curve as they extend outwardly from the base 5 of the housing 2, the space or gap between a transversely opposed pair of contacts is relatively small so that an unwanted solder bridge is relatively easily produced between the legs 8 during soldering thereof to the pads 9.
In addition, since much of the legs 8 and their adjacent parts are located beneath the base 5, it is difficult visually to inspect the soldering to the pads to ascertain the quality thereof.
Furthermore, since the gap H between the lower surface of the base 5 and the circuit board 4 is narrow and the radius of curvature of the legs 8 is relatively small, the solder fillet formed in the curved part of the leg 8 is relatively small, resulting in undesirably low soldering strength.